The Weekly Observer (Kampala)
3 September 2008
editorial
President Museveni who has been touring the country recently is back at his game of creating more districts out of villages. He has reportedly promised district status to Ntoroko, Serere, Buikwe and Ngora counties.
Uganda already has 83 districts!His argument is that these administrative units will bring services nearer to the people. But which services? These counties don't have good roads, clean water, hospitals or even decent health centres to speak of. Ntoroko especially is inaccessible during the rainy season. Even the moderate health centres that were built there not only lack drugs but also personnel to run them because professionals cannot live in such remote places without social amenities.
Not even the introduction of Local Service Tax can rescue these struggling districts because the majority of the residents subsist on primitive means of production.
There are no factories and service industries to employ the people in order for them to pay the taxes. So these new districts cannot even pay salaries for their army of councilors, CAOs, RDCs, DISOs and other local government officials.
The truth is that districts are not being created to take services closer to the people but to please some parochial politicians who want to create small fiefdoms for themselves.
The ordinary people of Uganda do not need districts. They need hospitals, better roads, schools, food, and security.
If the colossal amount of money used to maintain the local government apparatus was spent on health, education and agriculture, the citizens would get services much closer to them. If the money was channeled into improving the welfare of primary school teachers, the move would bring more benefit than proliferation of districts.
The President must be reminded that small districts will not end poverty among his voters, but better roads, improved seeds and indeed more classrooms will.
Yes, the people need social services as closest to them as possible, but creation of districts is not one of the ways of going about it. In fact, Uganda had better social services in the 1960s and 70s when the country had only a fraction of the districts it has today!
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